Excmo. Ayto. de Motril » ... » ... » ... » Infraestructuras Culturales » Ingenio de la Palma » English
Address:
Marquesa de Esquilache 4,
18600 Motril
Granada
Spain
e-mail:
museodelazucar@motril.es
Open from tuesday to sunday
10:00 a 13:30 h.
17:00 a 20:30 h.
Sunday, only mornings
Ticket: 3 €
Including guided tour
Phone number:
+34 958 822 206
Ingenio was the generic term used to designate the large, new sugar plants with all their facilities, machinery and tools as opposed to the more modest aduanas de açucar from Nazarí and Moorish times.
The town, its culture and its landscape have been united to the exploitation and manufacture sugar cane processes for almost thousand years.
The first news about the presence in Andalusia of this original oriental cultivation date from the 10th century in Granada coast. Since then, and thanks to its exceptional climatic and environmental conditions, sugar cane extended over a great part of the Mediterranean litoral.
In the 16th -18th centuries, that production boomed, with as many as eleven sugar houses in operation in the area. It was around this time that the sugar house was managered by genoeses merchants and the urban oligarchies. The production of sugar cane in preindustrial period prolongs until the end of the 18th century. Three centuries of productive, mercantile and financial splendour followed by serious crisis which practically finished with this cultivation. But the sugar cane reappeared in the 19th century with industrial steam-driven machines until present.
The La Palma sugar house , built in 16th century, produced sugar throughout the Modern Age, with interruptions such as in 1679 when the black death ravaged the town. The Motril´s sugar house of La Palma is the only place in the andalusian coast where many remains and materials have been preserved. Thanks to the archaeological remains all the processes of sugar manufacture in preindustrial time have been reconstructed. You can see the Palacio de las Cañas, the Sugar Cane Palace, where the sugar cane was stored, different kind of mills, the press room, kitchen and refining rooms, where sugarloaves were finally obtained after crystallizing in the sugar moulds. You also will find display panels, drawings, models and audio-visuals.
With this museum, the only one in Europe, Motril wants to give tribute to its relation with the sugar cane history. The high value of sugar brought once great fortunes to the town which became wealthier.
Motril, the town of sugar, offers to visitor a didactic and pleasant run summed up in nearly one thousand years of sugar cane cultivation. This appreciated product was considered the "sweet gold" of the andalusian coasts of the spanish Modern Age. The museum includes technological recreations and archeological material and it's situated above the remains of the sugar house of La Palma. It is the only one sugar house, partially conserved, of the spanish preindustrial period.